The Knight And His Squire

Braving a new world, punishing barbaric people, spreading the influence of your king and gaining riches. These are just a few things that Juan De Onate writes in his letter published in For the Record, “Letter from New Mexico”. Juan is writing to a rich and powerful Lord in hopes that he will grant him help and protection that he needs badly. Everything in Juan letter is influenced by his knowledge that if he is going to succeed that he needs more money and help, and he uses his experiences and how strong his morality is to convince this Lord to give him more money.

The way Columbus said those words so nonchalantly really gives me an idea of what kind of man Columbus really was and what kind of mission the Spaniards were really on. What does “I have already taken” mean? To me it means that Columbus now owns these “Indians” and their freedom was most likely taken by force. It means that he has already enslaved these people and they must have not put up much of a fight. He just kind of threw those four words into a sentence in the letter, did not mention how they have taken them or what happened, he just mentions that there are “Indians” and he is letting the monarchs back in Spain know that he has taken them. He mentions nothing more of the people he has just conquered, but moves on to mention how he named their island Hispaniola. This was just a preview for the more barbarism to come.

Columbus’s big plan for Hispaniola since the beginning was to take advantage of the natives and take their land, and the gold he believed was located there. He built the first fort in the Western Hemisphere, and left some of his men to find and store gold there. Columbus had to ask for a little more help from their majesties, he convinced them by saying he would take them “as much gold as they need ... and as many slaves as they ask” (Zinn,6 ) Columbus’s plans affected the natives, in many ways; first of all they were going to lose their land, and also they were going to be taken captive for slave labor.

Bartolome de las Casas- A young priest who spoke against the encomienda system in Book Two of his History of the Indies.

For my report, I chose to summarize how Brian Helgeland’s movie “A Knight’s Tale” (2001) draws its medieval themes and story from Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales: The Knight’s Tale”. Besides the nearly identical titles of these works and the moderately similar storyline, it can be further proven that “A Knight’s Tale” is an adaption of “The Knight’s Tale” because Geoffrey Chaucer appears as a character himself—and a vital one at that—in the movie. Furthermore, just to make certain that there is no mistake among the viewers about who they are dealing with, Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany) even refers to himself as a writer in the movie and points out his very first own work “The Book of the Duchess” in disbelief when some peasants don’t

Several fictional works set in Arthurian times contain numerous similar elements, whether that be in the structure of its plot or encounters with mythical beings; however, one particular element of these tales stands out among the rest, that being the knights in the stories. Both chivalrous and virtuous, knights are the very embodiment of Arthurian mythology, and are a staple in many Arthurian legends. Their courageous acts of selflessness and loyalty to their lords only add to their reputation, inspiring many authors throughout the ages to capture their likeness in various texts; however, only one author has been able to truly capture what it means to be a knight, that author being the “Gawain Poet.” Also known as the “Pearl Poet,” the “Gawain Poet” is most known for his chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The story revolves around a central conflict in which the protagonist, Sir Gawain, must fulfill an agreement with a mysterious knight. Gawain’s “debt” must be repaid exactly one year after their agreement, and if Gawain should fail to do so, his honor and reputation would be tarnished. It is through his struggles that Gawain not only grows as a character, but also shows what it means to truly be a knight. Sir Gawain is the epitome of a knight because he is not only chivalrous and virtuous, but also stays true to his word in the face of danger.

Chapter Three is based on Governor’s Alonso De Leon’s 1690 expedition. This chapter is a continuation of what chapter one and two talk about. In chapter three we are able to track the route of the 1690 expedition route through Alonso De Leon’s diary.

2. What was the role of Hernando Cortes in establishing Spanish settlements in the new world?

“The Knights Tale” is the first tale in Geoffrey Chaucers “The Canterbury Tales”. The story introduces various typical aspects of the knighthood such as chivalry, ethical dilemmas, and courtly love. Knights all have this characteristic which they call the code that they portray through out the tale. In Geoffrey Chaucers “The Knights Tale” is an effort on the knight’s part to preserve a virtuous code.

During these days, not much of the ocean had been explored yet, especially not in the Americas. However, according to document 3, Cortez made a speech to the one who joined him saying, “I shall make you the richest

Published in 2016, this secondary source was written using a variety of references by Thomas Brinkerhoff, a Ph.D. student studying Colonial Latin America and Global Empires and Imperial Legacies at the esteemed University of Pennsylvania. Brinkerhoff’s academic credibility

Consequently, most of the situations that Don Quixote is placed in during his ridiculous quest are excellent examples of slapstick comedy. The reader is highly entertained by Don Quixote on his adventures during which he implicitly believes that he is like the knights in the novels he has read and so; he logically believes his own fiction. The reader is embarrassed when Don Quixote decides that by choosing a new name for himself, his horse, his lady and his friends that this will suffice in making him a knight. Just like he shaped his own appearance, he chooses his name as “Don Quixote de La Mancha” and this becomes one of the most prominent jokes of the book. It is a name that is undignified and pretentious but simultaneously amusing because La Mancha is a dry, sparsely populated region of Spain, which is exactly what a knight should avoid. The suffix –ote was considered derogatory at that time and it is even funny sounding. We are skeptical from the very beginning as to whether or not Don Quixote is worthy of the title “Don” and our suspicions are confirmed when he fails to assist people in distress like any good knight should. It is highly entertaining when Andrés specifically asks Don Quixote not to complicate his life with any more of his help

“At the heart of Don Quixote is the discrepancy between external appearance and internal perception.” says Wirfs-Brock (2). In that respect, Don Quixote is depicted as a character who is guided merely by his internal perceptions, disregarding external appearances. Most of the time, he is deluded, depended on his faculty of imagination, stuck in his make-believe world through the guidance of chivalric books he is obsessed with and “everything he read in his books took possession of his imagination” (1/1 p.27). He takes everything he reads in those books for real as if they were parts of history and decides to join this glorious history by making a knight errant of him. In order to put all he has read into practice, he puts on a rusty armor, devises a heroic name for himself which is ‘Don Quixote de la Mancha’ and for his horse which is ‘Rocinante’. Additionally, since “a knight errant without a lady-love is a tree without leaves or fruit, a body without a soul” (1/1 p.29) he finds “a good-looking peasant girl” called Aldonza Lorenzo and decides to call her ‘Dulcinea del Toboso’. So this peasant girl becomes a princess, the most beautiful lady in the world for him to whom he may serve “as if he really were in love” (1/1 p.31).

     In chapter sixteen, Don Quijote and his sidekick, Sancho, arrive at an inn, all beat up from their battles, and from falling down a lot. The hero thinks the inn is a castle, and deems that they are owed a warm and comfortable place to sleep because he is the Great Don Quijote de La Mancha, braving battles against all evil for the purpose of saving the kingdom. Sancho and a girl who works at the inn, Maritones, have a “knight errant” conversation, in which he realizes he needs to explain the point behind what he and Don Quijote do. “A knight errant can see himself, as fast as ‘one, two, three,’ either beaten with clubs or turned into an emperor. Today, he can be the most wretched creature in the world, and the neediest, and tomorrow he can have two or three kingships to give his squire.” (p. 87) The poor man really thinks that Don Quijote will someday be rich and famous and hook him up. Even if this became the case, as he is really secretly out for himself, for his own recognition, who’s to say that Sancho would get anything out of this, except for orders to relay his newfound fame to Dulcinea?

The original Spanish conquest is alluded to when, in the first chapter, Jose Arcadio Buendia finds an old suit of armor and the remains of a galleon, mysteriously stranded several kilometers from the sea. The early Spanish colonization and the devastating pirate raids of the